The Devotion of Suspect X , a review...

I had never ever read a Japanese author and that is a shame because the Japanese culture has always been fascinating for me. A few travelogues and stories about japan written by Indian authors is all I remember reading here and there. So when this book was up for review on Blogadda, I was curious about it.

Reading the introduction, I knew it was a suspense thriller and must be little to do about Japanese culture. I picked up the book for review because it had been a long time I read some thriller. This is the kind of novel that would revoke your interest back to thrillers if you have lost it.

The story begins rather slow, giving a glimpse of a river side population of homeless and struggling people. A Maths teacher Ishigami is walking to work crossing these areas watching a few characters whom he meets on the way. This part of the story moves slow and you might think you wouldn't be able to get a hang of this book.

Hold on to a few more pages and a mystery would unfold and you would get hooked.

Here is a lady Yasuko, living with her daughter, working in a Bento shop and living a peaceful life. She has worked in a bar earlier and has been abused in the past as a wife of a drunkard. She has managed to get a divorce and get away from her ex husband so she can live a decent and undisturbed life with her daughter. She joins a couple who have opened this Bento shop to get her daughter a decent upbringing.

It is a story of how a woman whose ex husband appears one fine day and demands money deceptively, to which she has to give in. The ex husband then goes on to pass lewd remarks on the daughter and in a whirlwind of dramatic events the ex husband is killed.

The novel revolves around solving the mystery of this killing. I wouldn't spoil your suspense by further revealing the story. Read the book if you want to see a puzzle being unfold.

The translation of this book is excellent and you don't realise while reading that this novel was written in some other language.

At 350 INR, and a gripping reading ensured, the novel is a good pick. Authored by Keigo Higashino and translated by Alexander O.Smith with Eley J.Alexander.

This book was sent to me by Blogadda under the book review program. You can also get a book to review by signing up here.

A new bird spotted : Indian black Ibis...

Yesterday I decided to go for a morning walk cum bird watch walk with my friend Sukanya Dutta. She is an avid birder too and we started with our camera in hands at around 7 AM.

IARI campus at Pusa institute is a green place with huge old trees and a trained staff to maintain trees and the fauna around. We spotted many bird boxes hung over the trees for House Sparrows. But sadly there were no sparrows in sight, though we see few in our vicinity. The boxes were inhabited by Common Mynahs.

There is a favorite spot of mine in this campus, a huge Arjuna tree (Terminalia arjuna) where we hear a loud noise always in the morning hours. To this date we used to think they were Vultures as the birds looked huge and their cry was harsh and reminded of Vultures. We could see the long necks and huge black birds to confirm our knowledge. The long straight beak was never noticed by the myopic eyes as we (me and my husband) never wore spectacles for morning walks. We have marginally myopic eyes by the way, which doesn't affect normal activities but to see a bird perched on a really tall tree is something else.

So I was wearing my spectacles, and we stopped as usual near the Arjuna tree to see the 'vultures'.

Sukanya is a popular Science writer with NISCAIR and has written 16 books including science fiction and children's books. She has been in this area for the last two decades and has always heard about the 'vultures' roosting in IARI. Yesterday this information was proven wrong.

So as we were looking at them, with bespectacled eyes, I told her these are not vultures for sure as the beaks are just too long. But she was backed by a two decade old knowledge and denied initially. And then I spotted the red head with the slightly powerful lens of my camera (18-105 mm). She was sure then that these were not vultures and kept wondering what could it be. It was a first time spotting of this bird for her as well.

She later confirmed, it was the Indian black Ibis.

This is how I clicked the first picture as in the past too I had always saw them sitting in the nests mostly in pairs. So naturally the camera was pointed towards a nest...

Long beaks evident...

And then one of them stooped his head. It was red. Red signal for us to look out for identifying the species.

And then I spotted a few loners...see the beak...

And the red head...

It raises it's head...

Moves the neck...fluffed up to scare us may be. Birds are always aware someone is watching.

And then smoothing the fluffy neck....if our goose bumps were so easy to hide :-)

Another one looking like an Ostrich...

This one showing it's red head....

And this one guarding the nest while the female is incubating the eggs ...

I noticed the nests looked as if tied with a light colored rope or something, to the branch it was located. See the light bands below the nest marked on the branch...

I was amazed how the birds could have done it. It was later when Sukanya called me up within an hour of returning for the walk, with excitement that she has searched and found what species it is. And when I reminded how the nests looks tied up with a rope she told it could be the bird droppings which trickles down. She knows better.

It was unbelievable though, as those bands looked so uniform... Later when I cropped my pictures, it was confirmed these markings were actually bird droppings.... See the next picture...

The liquid droppings have trickled down on the sloping branch...

See the next , where the bird sitting in the nest is watchful of us, the male on guard looks lazy and the dropping markings are clear...but looking like the branch has been wrapped with light colored rope or something....

Look at the markings more clearly...from below the tree we couldn't have imagined these were bird droppings. looked exactly like someone has tired up the nests for support..

The male guard has started preening...bored of his job of a watch guard ...

But he checks out the nest in between....

Another nest, another female sitting pretty ...

These two are looking like they lost something...

I was calling them redheads all this while...It was only later that we knew the name thanks to the enthusiasm of Sukanya Dutta. I was having my cup of tea when she was searching the internet frantically...No wonder she is a scientist...

Look at the dropping markings again...

This bird made our day.

And this was not all we spotted yesterday. We found a nesting heaven for Yellow footed green pigeons. There were a few dozens of them perched on almost every branch of a Causuarina jungle of sorts...

A Drongo, a few Brown headed Barbets and a couple of Woodpeckers, some Grey Hornbills and many more.

It was a great walk indeed.

Disciplining ourselves, knowing more..bird stories....

 We do a few things out of habit. Like I used to when I would just break a leftover roti into pieces and keep it into the bird feeder. The usuial Bajra and other millets were kept on a regular basis too, the leftover breads were also put into the same feeder. Last year I even used to make some corn bread only for the birds and the squirrels around. I will not be doing it again.

After reading this information at the NBRI botanical garden I would never keep any cooked food in my bird feeders.

Also, there is a misconception that the birds need water only during the summer months. They do need water in the winters too and I watch them drinking water in my bird baths all round the year.

It's just that they take a dip into the bird bath more often during the summers. It's a treat watching them have a bath, and then preen for a long time as if straightening their dresses. I wish I had a bigger bird bath that looked great in the garden as well. A stone bird bath I saw once had a price tag of more than ten thousand bucks.

Nevertheless , there have been some power meetings in my rock garden , some romances have bloomed and there have been some more exciting times too...

You have to watch the space for an hour and you would see a constant traffic being diverted to this side...

The jungle Babblers are abundant and I have witnessed many of them coming together to the bird feeders and bird baths, taking care of the young ones and making them learn flying. They are a noisy lot and since they are always in a group of seven or even more , hence called Seven Sisters, the noise becomes annoying sometimes.

I have seen all in the family getting together and making a young chick learn flying. And when I watch them they all point their beak at me and shout at me to go away. That's a sight.

I have also seen a lame Babbler who used to stay aloof from the pack of seven and was a little grumpy all the time. But not a bit scared or low spirited. He/she had probably learnt living alone.

 I once saw the family scare away a crow who was wandering around to steal the eggs. Surprisingly, a Red crested Bulbul was helping them too. That was the first time I witnessed inter-species cooperation in birds. The crow had no choice when about a dozen birds were hawking at him. Literally.

A new story was witnessed just a few days ago. When a couple of Jungle Babbler chicks were drinking water and the mother came. Both of them started saying something aloud to the mother. See how the mother is listening carefully. How the body language is so clear...

And then the mother started scolding them it seems. Now see the body language of the chicks.

Wings still angry but the beak and face suggest they are listening...

After doing her job, the mother is proceeding to do other important things.

Inspecting around to see if the chicks are safe...

The chicks still thinking what the mother said and though they seem dissatisfied, they have to obey...

The mother has to have a drink of water before she leaves for other things to be done.

The chicks still looking dissatisfied,  reluctantly behaving themselves , following instructions.

It's such a beautiful thing to watch them bond. Till date I have seen these Babblers being the most family oriented birds. Probably that is the reason they always come in a group of seven or eight. Probably they are not siblings but the whole family together.

many pet birds are different as they seem to have picked up some human habits. Being away from the natural habitat doesn't allow us to see how they would behave normally.